After Roy Cooper’s election, the legislature ordered that the new Democratic governor should have hundreds fewer political appointees than his Republican predecessor, Pat McCrory.

It fell to McCrory to decide which political jobs subject to hiring and firing would become civil-service jobs whose employees are protected from being fired without cause. In his last weeks in office, McCrory handed out those protections to jobs ranging from aquarium director to Division of Motor Vehicles field services director to economic development manager – as well as to senior administration positions held by employees with ties to McCrory.[…]

The result was to make it more difficult for Cooper to fire 124 people McCrory had hired into state government, as well as hundreds more who predated McCrory’s term.

The Office of State Human Resources released a list of affected employees this week in response to a public records request by The News & Observer.[…]

The McClatchy Gang and the other remnants of the mainstream media in North Carolina have heaped praise on Boss Bev for allegedly leaving town in a graceful and dignified manner when Gov. Pat moved in. I had an interesting conversation today with someone intimately familiar with the inner workings of the new administration in Raleigh. This source was steamed — to put it mildly. Apparently, Team McCrory has discovered a rather nasty surprise Bev and her team left for them.

According to my source, Bev made scores and scores of appointments and personnel shifts the day before her last day in office. My source says Team Bev installed loads of allies in positions normally reserved for the incoming governor to fill. In just ONE state agency ALONE, Team McCrory has discovered at least three dozen of these last-minute hires / transfers. In one case, a person — whose qualifications for the job are unknown — was apppointed by Team Bev as budget director for a cabinet-level agency. In another case, a new McCrory hire walked into his office on the first day and found someone else there — who had been installed in the same job by Team Bev.

So, what’s the problem, you ask? Why don’t the Republicans just remove all of these people? My source tells me that a lot of these Bev hires / transfers are veteran state employees who can’t simply be terminated. You have to FIND them another state job. So, you have to keep the Bev ally as agency budget director, or find another slot to put them in so you can bring in your OWN budget expert.

It looks like we have an intricate effort to sabotage the McCrory agenda from within.

So, while WRAL and McClatchy want to coo over Bev’s “classy” departure, the reality looks a whole lot more like pettiness and vindictiveness.

It’s interesting to see all of the outrage in the N&O newsroom that just wasn’t there in 2012. I’ve got mixed feelings about protecting state employee jobs. On one hand, people working in sensitive jobs like law enforcement, auditing, and bookkeeping need to be protected from intimidation by politicians and political hacks. But, let’s face it, a lot of people get stuck in state jobs they are highly unqualified for. Instead of being protected from intimidation, their incompetence is being protected.

It’s simply human nature. If you believe there will be no consequences for your actions, you’ll do whatever you want. People tend to walk a much straighter, much more narrow line when there is the chance they could get punished for misdeeds.